Confidence Chair: Position or Lifestyle?

Right off the bat, I knew Cecilia Kahle, more commonly known as Cece, was a very fitting person to talk about the issues discussed on our blog. Cece is warm, kind and always finding new ways to inspire the people around her. This finds form mostly in her position as Confidence chair in her sorority, Kappa Delta here at the University of Pittsburgh. Going into our interview I had a slew of questions about her experience in Greek life since I myself know little to nothing about Greek life here besides the fun and crazy stories my friends who are in it tell me about the date parties and comical themes like togas. I, however, wanted to know more about why people really gave most of their college lives to this group. I knew there were more things to sororities than the stereotypes that people always think like, drinking, being pretty, and sisterhood. Before I fully dive into Cece’s experience with KD and Greek life as a whole I wanted to know a little bit more about her as an individual and try to pinpoint where she learned to care for people as well as she does.

Cece grew up on a farm in a quaint town in Pennsylvania called Carlisle, outside of Harrisburg. Her face lit up with joy as soon as she mentioned she lived on a farm growing up. I could feel and clearly picture her and her family playing pretend farmer when they were young running through the fields of green grass and breathing in the fresh, yet slightly tainted with the smell of animal, air. They had a tree house on the property and described her and her family always playing outside. Their family did not own the farm because it was maintained by their neighbors, but the house she lived in growing up was the house made for the farm. Cece described her house as her favorite place to be, and I found this to be so endearing. Most people talk about their favorite place to be and it is some extravagant foreign country either in so huge city or in the middle of nowhere in nature where you can shout out and no one could hear you. The fact that her favorite place ever is her home back with her family and the memories of a joyous childhood explained a little bit as to why she is able to take on the world as she does, with her head held high and ready to encourage anyone who needs it.

Both of my parents are nurses and I see them go by day-to-day helping people so casually. I admire nurses so much and appreciate all they do for health care. It is very fitting when I found out that Cece is a junior in the nursing program here at Pitt. When I asked her what department she could see herself working in she initially said Oncology, which is working with cancer patients. My father works in Oncology and it is one of the toughest departments because some of the patients feel so hopeless. She also spoke passionately about possibly being a psych nurse and maybe getting her doctorate in that field. Cece talked about how she shadowed a nurse who was called when people needed to be evaluated for psych. Those type of nurses takes care of the mental strength of their patients while they are being physically treated and diagnosed, a part of health care that some people may overlook. We can only be as physically healthy as we are mentally healthy, and that is something Cece promotes and lives by.

Not only is Cece heavily involved in Greek life, as the interview was mainly about, but I also wanted to know a little more about how she spent her time. Best Buddies is the other main club that she takes part in. It is a club where you get paired with someone who has a mental disability and does activities with them. She did a club similar to this back in high school, where her interest in helping people began. Her buddies name is Jeff and they had just recently seen each other. Immediately after mentioning his name, she pulled out a picture of the two sitting on the Cathedral lawn and they both looked so genuinely joyous. They had just been to the Young the Giant concert held by the Pitt Program Council. There was even a video of him dancing around to the music. Cece also recalled this past summer where she volunteered her time at a summer camp called PALS for adults with down syndrome. She worked as a nurse assistant at the camp in Richmond and San Francisco. This type of volunteer work is not for everyone, it takes a certain kind of person filled with patience and understanding, and it is very clear Cece exhibits both of these qualities perfectly. Lastly, Cece works at Cappy’s Cafe, and bar, in Shadyside to earn money for school. Her busy schedule also incorporates her hard course load as well.

A key point about greek life I was curious about from the start is, how time-consuming it is to be involved with as a full-time student and someone who works and is involved with other activities. Since Cece is as busy as the next girl she was the perfect person to explain how one balances it all. A famous saying floating around the greek life at Pitt is “you get what you put into it” and she affirmed that was a true statement. She says it is tricky to manage in the beginning, but she explains that as long as you have good time-management skills you will be okay. You also have to make sure that the commitment is worth it in the end, she said perfectly, “If you want to make time for it you will”, and that is a decision more than it is a skill. They also are very flexible and able to work with you a lot. For chapter, which is there mandatory meeting each week, I know they have a certain amount of academic skips they get in a semester.

On to greek life, you might now be asking yourself, what is rushing and how does one go about doing it? Well, I had the same exact question. If you are a guy, my understanding is you just go to events with fraternities and they will give you a bid if they want you, but all girls have to go through the same thing when they want to rush. First, you go to ‘ten rounds’, where you are in a group of around fifteen girls and you go to all ten sororities. From this, you determine your top seven, but you do not rank them, you just note which seven you could see yourself in. You then rank your bottom three based on your interest. You receive a list back of the sororities that mutually wanted you. Typically you get seven back, but you can possibly get less based on the sororities. ‘Seven rounds’ is next and you spend a little more time getting to know the sororities. A similar thing occurs and you get down to ‘five rounds’. After that, you get preffed by two sororities, where you spend close to an hour with one girl in each group. At this point, you make the hard decision of which is your number one choice is. This is where you have to consider all of the morals and ideas you have about where you see yourself. Then finally comes ‘bid day’ where you get an official invitation to one of the two sororities.

Another thing people worry about going into rushing is their friendships that they had prior to rushing and Cece felt that way too. She explained though that her best friend is in another sorority and them still to this day are close friends. Her roommates are also in other sororities, and one of them is not in greek life at all. Once, you pledge a sorority it does not become your entire social life. You are still able, and Cece does this well, to keep and maintain the amazing relationships you created a first-semester senior year. The fact that the University of Pittsburgh chooses to do rush second semester freshman year allows people to create bonds with the people on their floor before they get closer to a new group of equally amazing girls. All of the sororities are extremely supportive of each other and often do social events together.

Moving onto her involvement in Greek life. I asked Cece what made her want to rush, which she did the second semester her freshman year. She candidly answered her last minute decision to rush was because all of her friends in nursing were rushing. Her expectations going into rushing were zero, she was not sure what to say, wear, or do. This is a common feeling for students going into rushing. Cece did not anticipate being in a sorority when she entered college but has loved every moment of it. I asked what advice she would give to someone about to rush, partly because I am actually rushing next semester and am curious and also because rushing is really the beginning and start of each person greek life. She expressed this was a challenging question to answer, but that each person should truly consider the values they are looking for in a sorority and find that. A common example they use during rush is, find a sorority where if you left your purse in there house you would feel totally comfortable going back, walking in and saying, hey sorry I forgot my purse, and them being totally fine with it. That comfortable relationship is key when looking for the group of girls you will spend the majority of your time with the rest of your college experience. I was curious how someone knew what the values of each sorority were since when rushing you really do not spend that much time at each sorority. She said each sorority has very clear distinctions to each other. She thinks of the sorority as simply a group of women who encourage and support each other, which sounds like a pretty amazing organization to me. She has been in Kappa Delta for a year and a half now and has not looked back. Going into the rushing process Cece was nervous about losing the amazing friends she made her first semester freshman year and said that is a common misconception to a lot of people entering Greek life. However, she still is extremely close with her friends, the ones in other sororities and that are not even in greek life. She lives now with people in her sorority, a girl in another sorority on campus, and lastly with one friend who is not in any sorority. Friendship to her is not bound by which sorority you are in. Cece talked about the benefits to Pitt delaying freshman from rushing till the second semester, and those benefits are giving people the chance to meet friends without joining Greek life.

Kappa Delta has three philanthropies that they actively work with and those are, The Confidence Coalition, Prevent Child Abuse America, and Girl Scouts. They have different events associated with each cause. They had just had their Shamrock Event which was a powder puff flag football game where they raised money for Prevent Child Abuse America. KD has three Girl Scout events each semester where they just go and hang out with the girls and do an activity with them. The Confidence Coalition is something that Kappa Delta created nationally and it is all about encouraging confidence in a woman, which is something Cece and Pitts chapter of KD feel particularity strong about. This leads right into Cece’s position on her board. The president of KD here at Pitt is Natalie Simmons and this philanthropy inspired here to create the position of Confidence Chair, which Cece currently holds

Confidence chair is a new position that Kappa Delta created last year. Not a typical board position, it is very specific to this chapter of KD and Cece was chosen to take on this new project. Some of her duties include sending out monthly new letters to all of the members of the sorority. She brings up new relevant topics at the beginning of each month. Some examples are September she wrote a newsletter about anxiety, October's topic was related to the news about Dr. Ford and speaking your truth, and November's topic was emotional piggybanks. She not only sends out a new letter, but she goes the extra mile and attaches resources at the bottom of her emails to help out her sisters. Along with all the great tips and resources, she will attach a healthy recipe or a challenging workout to try to promote healthy ways of dealing with these issues. She has also brought in guest speakers like counselors to talk to the whole sorority. Groups of girls also volunteer to lead workout sessions through Cece, again to promote a healthy lifestyle. Once a semester she also organizes social media challenges for her sisters to interact with. This past October, which is mental health awareness month Cece started a hashtag with ‘mentalhealthmattertoKD’ and had sisters post encouraging quotes or pictures to their Instagram stories, just to get the word out. Last spring, she also made a ‘KDunfiltered’ challenge where people in the sorority would nominate other girls to post a picture with no makeup or filters to their Instagram story, and those three would nominate another three people. This was so big that I was even nominated and participated in the challenge.

Cece has brought love, joy, and acceptance into so many people lives and that is really all you can ask of someone. She will continue on her path of caring for people for the rest of her life. Her optimism and dedication to not only Kappa Delta, but to women empowerment has made me very excited to rush this coming winter. Her story should make anyone on the fence of rushing or not want to rush just to meet girls as fantastic as her.